Moved to www.logansbasement.com

Hi All,

This site has now made a permanent home at www.logansbasement.com so you can find all the latest comic/movie/tech news as well as updates on recently released Vinyl. I hope to see you there

Work in progress

The following is part of a novel I am in the process of writing. It is the beginning of a story called Gift Wrap. Please keep in mind that its work in progress, and I really hope you like it. The whole book will be interview style short stories with a larger story arc to be found within them.

I am speaking to Dr Jhonas Bluth, acting head of what was the CDC but is now a loose collection of scientists and science teachers, trying to push forward in the reserch of what is still not understood whist teaching the new genreation to continue their ongoing study of what happened and finally answer the only questions worth answering right now, “will it return”. He was working with Dr George Grason when he became the first American casualty of the XXXXXX. I ask him to explain the events that lead to this:

Well....the whole horrible business began in Seol. We were flown in by the UN as part of the research team that was supposed to help prevent, cure.... God I dont know, whatever we could do to try and stop or at least understand what, at the time was being referred to as a virus. The plane ride over had been horrendus to say the least, we were given potos, video and research notes about the situation. Gastly images of death, decay and a level of violence and inhumanity the like of which I pray to never see again. Then.....then we were expected to sleep, all the time knowing we were to step into the ninth circle of hell when the plane landed and sort the whole mess out. You think that leaves you with a mind that is willing to allow itself to rest?

I shake my head trying not to break his train of thought.

Exactly. Every one of us on that plane got off looking more like the dead thatn the dam “infected” did, infected was what we were still calling them at the time. We immediately set to work. We were driven straight from the plane to the reserch lab located a safe distance from the last know area of infection. As we neared the facility we were all issued masks. Several of the doctors began to panic. They kept asking if this unknown had become air borne, the fear in the eys of the others belied their stoney silenced exteriors. We were proptly told that this was not a safety measure, it was only to try and reduce the smell that we were headed towards. The problem with a country that is slowly becoming covereed in decaying corpses is that the smell overpowers everything. Imagine when you have had meat go off in the fridge, the feeling of nevery getting out of your nose, that would most likey only have been a kilo at most. Now imagine that times a thousand. Hundreds of corpses slowly decaying en-mass in the hot humid landscape of Asia. The combined weight of several thousand rotting bodies. That is a smell we all know now and something I fear will never be forgotten by anyone. I will most certainly never forget it. The masks did however also allow for some protection against the other diseases that undoubtably were arround at the time, the most worrying of which was collera. We cremate or bury bodies for a reason, and that reason is disease. A mass of corpses will harbour bacteria and disease better than any viral research facility. A corpse is the perfeect host for all manner of hideus illnesses and we now had hundreds of these walking viral studdies all collected in a fairly small area. Spread out just enough to cause many areas uninabitable without the use of a hazmat or biological containment suit. But I digress.

He fidgits slightly and restarts his explanation:

Our base of operations remanis a souce of puzzlement and unanswered questions to me still.

Because of what happened there, I ask instictively foregetting momenteraly about the tape recorder.

….Oh no no no, you have misunderstood me. It remains a facination to me as we had entered through hermetically sealed doors. This was the first of many surprises. The whole bulding had been custom designed for situations such as this. When this building was created it included features that were custom designed to either stop a virus or bacteria entering or more likely to prevent it leaving. You must remember that this was a pharmasutical research lab, where they designed consumer medicines, variations on asperin and spot creams. Simple things that were sold over the counter, they had no need for all these safety measures unless something a little more secretive was being researched.

Once inside the first of the hermetically sealed doors we found ourselves stood in front of another identical set of doors. The gap between them housed two old wooden benches, one to either side of us and hazmat suits with gas masks hanging on pegs above each bench, roughly four on each side. We were instructed to put the masks on whilst we were decontaminated. A common procedure for this sort of situation. We stripped down to our underwear and once we all had our masks on a gas was pumped into the room to remove any unwanted bacteria and the like, that we may have picked up outside. The gas was then vacuumed back out of the room and we were told to wait for blood samples to be taken. Whilst we were waiting I realized that we could not see anything from this vantage point. No reception, no sign of life at all, just bare walls an security cameras. These little mechanical watchmen were everywhere.

A few hours later we were given the all clear and handed scrubs and coats by one of the researchers already at the facility and taken through the bare room past the entrance and down a rather long set of stairs to the labs.

to be cont.......

If you liked it, hated it, have some constructive comments let me know by sounding off below. 

Warm Bodies - Book Review

Warm bodies is set long after the initial infection began, the dead have risen and overrun the civilized world. The remaining shreds of humanity huddle in stadium fortresses trying to regain their world block by block. We are introduced to R, the main protagonist of the book. R does not know how long he has been dead or why he is still able to function, all be it in a reduced capacity, and it is this premise that leads the book throughout. Rather then focus on the desperate survival of the last of the living Isaac Marion lets us inside the world of the zombies. The narative is mostly presented to us through the inner monologue of R. We hear of how the zombies function as a society, what they do between feeding on humans and even how they create families and school the younger zombies in hunting. The younger zombies (younger in age when turned in to the undead) are shown a captured human and taught how to attack them, where the most vulnerable areas of flesh are, this scene is then seen later as the survivors bring out a captured zombie and attempt to teach the same to their children. Bing as they were once us the parallel lives being lived on either side of the conflict caused me to reconsider how I view the undead and made me look back at other zombie novels and movies and imagine the same happening off screen during those. R himself is doomed to frustration, he has a rich and insightful inner monologue that is almost impossible for him to articulate verbally, as at the start of the book his consecutive spoken syllable record is three however all this is about to change. During a trip to the city to feed, R and his companion M stumble across Juile. R unfortunately has just devoured Julies boyfriend but in eating his brains R has lived this life and knows Juile just as he did. This is where I need to stop the review as to divulge more that this would be unfair, as I think this is something you need to discover for yourself. I found this to be one of the most compelling and enjoyable books I have read in this genre for quite some time and that enjoyment could be found by fans of the Zombie genre and those for whom this is not their usual source of entertainment. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. And urge to read it as son as possible.

You can purchase the book right now here

Coming soon in Book reviews - Feed, The zombie Autopsies and Zombies a record of the year of infection.

Dead Island review coming soon

As soon as I complete it and if I can stop playing it, my Dead Island review will be posted. It's taken a lot of criticism recently, but so far I am loving it.

Zombie Undead - Part 2

OK, I feel bad for just branding a film as rubbish and not giving more of an explanation. The film starts with the terrorist attack, and at this early stage of the movie I was interested but made aware there was a very small if non-existent budget for this movie. We then cut to an off duty ambulance driver rushing a critically injured man and his daughter to receive medical attention for what looked like a bite, but could have due to the attack that sets up the film. I was at this point that the level of acting that was to follow became apparent. The constant barrage of "we will be there soon" and "hang on a few more minutes" were not convincing in the least however, I can forgive one bad actor so happily went along with the story. They arrive at the place where the father can recieve treatment (I dont know if this was an emergancy medical facility set up due to the terrorist attack or wether they just couldnt get exterior shots of a hospital but the place they go to was a large house that from the outside looked like it only had a few floors but once inside we were made to believe that the place was far bigger and required lifts). Our main protagonist faints while her father is receiving treatment and hits her head on the tiled floor, once she comes to, everyone is gone and the place is a wreck. The main character was obviously moved whilst unconscious and therefore survived the chaos that occurred .  As she wonders around the facility looking for her father she runs into a rather poorly made up zombie and during this attack another character appears and kills the zombie. She freaks out about this as at this point she is unaware that they are ravenous monsters and believes that the man who saved her has killed someone. We are then treated to a strange conversation about what has happened and it was at this moment that I lost all interest in this movie. The character that saves her is beyond terrible, he did not deliver a single line in a believable way and really shouldn't have been in the film. The film just deteriorates from there, the sets looked like they were hastily constructed and many were built using unfinished wood that they didn't even bother to paint, or shots of the same corridor over and over. The zombies themselves were also badly done and in more than one shot several zombies are dressed identically and standing next to each other.

The story was decent enough but the quality of the rest of the movie ruined any chance this had from the get go. Avoid this film, its not worth your time. 

Zombie Undead - Utter rubbish

Err..... I don't really know where to start with this one, I had really high hopes for a decent British zombie film but alas, it was not to be. The story revolves around a terrorist attack unleashing the undead and throughout the film the story didn't really pick up any pace or momentum. The acting was dire, the make-up and effects were lacklustre and unfortunately I struggled to finish the film. I'm sorry for such a sloppy review but I cant even find much to write about the film. I would never recommend it to anyone and cant think of anything I liked about it either. Stay well clear of this movie. Its not worth you time or money.

Evil to Kako review, do not miss this film

Hollywood in general gives us rubbish, we are used to this and anyone who is into films spends most of their movie watching life looking for the diamond in the rough. This film may not be a diamond but it shines bright in the face of the Hollywood movie machine and in the true spirit of the independent film industry manages to do some things that make it truly stand out.

This is the first Greek zombie movie and was written and directed by Yorgos Noussias. They had practically no budget for this film but have made an absolute cracker of a no budget zombie film which has a sequel in the works featuring Billy Zane, but more on that later. The film opens with three guys finding an opening to an underground cave, it is not made clear why there were there or why they had a ladder and hard hats with them but its not particularly important to the story. Once in the cave we have an evil dead style POV shot from the "Evil`s" point of view and the three men are attacked. We then cut to each of the three men and what they are doing that evening and get to watch them turn in the undead. The locations of the three make for interesting choices as two of them are in public places which will allow for a rapid spreading of the undead and one is at home so we get a more claustrophobic change where only the persons direct family are involved (at first). We are introduced to a few of the main characters, most notably the taxi driver who will provide some great comic relief throughout the film. The daughter of the man who turn whilst at home escapes with a woman from downstairs and for the most part we then have a standard zombie movie where the main characters try to escape the zombie infested city. The gore is handled very well for the budget however about halfway through the movie there is a sequence in an abandoned restaurant where the characters stop being people and for no apparent reason become ultimate zombie killing machines using martial arts and showing feats of super strength. This section comes straight out of left field and really stood out as it is unlike most of the rest of the film. I have no idea why the scene was shot like this as all the characters personalities change dramatically and then after they all go straight back to how they were. The end of the film is the highlight, not because its over but because the final scene is truly awesome, with such a low budget I'm not sure how they got the over head shot of the stadium but i was blown away with it and turned a good film to a must see for all zombie fans.

As for the sequel, Evil: In The Time Of Heroes , the pictures on the official website show that this appears to have some scenes if not most of the film in ancient Greece which is certainly a great idea (although Rome Vs Rome did something along those lines) if you want to see the pics follow the link below: -

http://www.tokako.gr/

hope you like the review, I'm off to watch the zombie diaries so expect a review soon.